[Televisionary]

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. ABC Family has canceled quirky dramedy The Middleman , with the cabler confirming that it has "decided not to renew the series for a second season." Fans looking for closure can keep their eyes open for a Season One DVD, slated to be released this summer, and a comic book written by creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach that will tell the story of the original season finale, which was scrapped for budgetary reasons. ( New York Post ) Jason Clarke ( Brotherhood ) has been cast as the lead in CBS' untitled US attorney drama pilot from writer/executive producer Frank Military. Clarke will play "the powerful, charismatic section chief who oversees four lawyers and a handful of paralegals in their overlapping cases." Elsewhere, Jonathan Sadowski, Kevin Simpson, Noureen Dewulf, and Ricky Mabe been cast in FOX comedy pilot Two Dollar Beer and Nick Bishop, Kelli Giddish and Ravi Patel have all been cast in FOX's untitled

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Edie Britt will leave Wisteria Lane at the end of the season. Nichollette Sheridan's rep confirmed to Extra that the actress will depart ABC's Desperate Housewives after the current season. "Yes, [it's] confirmed," said Sheridan's rep. "Nicollette had a great time on the show and is looking forward to her next project." ( Extra ) Balthazar Getty is not leaving ABC's Brothers & Sisters for good, according to co-showrunner Alison Schapker, who says that the actor will leave Los Angeles in the nineteenth episode but return before the season finale. "Balthazar is taking time off from the show right now because we felt that character was really on a downward spiral and you see him really go on it," said Schapker. "In almost trying to be his dad, he's destroyed by it, and he has lost everything by the end of the year. Tommy is in no way permanently gone. This is just the l

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I hope everyone's now well rested from Super Bowl weekend and a slew of first-run series programming. Let's dive into the headlines. Bad news for the belly button-less: ABC Family has canceled teen sci-fi drama Kyle XY . The cabler did however renew Greek , Lincoln Heights , and The Secret Life of the American Teenager for additional seasons and handed out ten episode orders for new series Ruby and the Rockits , Perfect 10 , and 10 Things I Hate About You . ( Variety ) NBC announced that it will stream both the 3D and 3D versions of tonight's episode of Chuck live at NBC.com starting at 5 am PT tomorrow. Viewers will also be able to choose between watching the 3D installment in either HD or standard definition, with or without closed caption subtitles, and stream while chatting using NBC.com's Viewing Party function. (via press release) The New York Times profiles Chuck 's Adam Baldwin, who returns to the airwav

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. Looks like Ashes to Ashes isn't the only series heading back to the 1980s (well, except for Mitch Hurwitz's Lost in the '80s , that is): Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have announced that the untitled spinoff of CW's Gossip Girl will focus on a teenage Lily Rhodes van der Woodsen Bass (played in the original by Kelly Rutherford) as a wild child in 1980s Los Angeles who moves in with her sister in San Fernando Valley after a falling out with her parents and must adjust to life at a Valley public school and a nightlife on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Spinoff will be produced as a backdoor pilot that will air May 11th as part of Gossip Girl 's current season. ( Variety ) Chevy Chase has been cast in a three-episode story arc on NBC's Chuck , where he will play Ted Roark, the billionaire technology mogul and owner of Roark Instruments, a company that Chuck Bartowski has always dreamed of working for. But

Yesterday's FOX panel at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour wasn't filled with too many surprises (did we really need to find out what Kiefer Sutherland's exercise regimen entails?) but there were a few revelations in store for attendees, most of which came from FOX entertainment president Kevin Reilly. (Those of you who were following my Twitter feed during the panel can attest to some shocking/funny/bizarre moments throughout the day, including when Reilly described NBC as "the crazy ex-wife that I can't get away from." Those of you who weren't following the feed: shame on you!) Chief among the revelations: Reilly claiming that the network would "let [ Dollhouse ] play out for 13 episodes" and that FOX would end Prison Break at the end of this season. "Creatively, the show is just played out," said Reilly. "Creatively, everybody feels enough stories were told. We want it to finish strong and not just gimp out

The axe has fallen at ABC. It's time for the terrible, terrible news that we've all been dreading for weeks now: ABC has decided not to renew Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money , and Eli Stone past their initial 13-episode orders for this season. While the word cancellation hasn't been officially given, it's basically equal to just that. None of the three series will continue past their initial second season orders. Many of us have been on death watch for Pushing Daisies for some time now and it absolutely breaks my heart to think that Chuck and Ned's days are now numbered. ABC has yet to release an official statement about the, er, non-cancellation cancellations, but word started to reach me mid-day that the network would not be ordering any additional episodes of the troika. UPDATE: James Hibberd at The Live Feed has gotten a statement from Daisies creator Bryan Fuller, who was playing phone tag with ABC's president, about the decision: "I assumed that&

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. I'm still a little tired after staying up to watch Fringe last night after attending the Los Angeles premiere of Doubt , starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. (Verdict? A good film but not a great one.) NBC has confirmed a long-standing rumor and announced that Rashida Jones ( The Office ) has been cast in the untitled Amy Poehler workplace comedy project from Greg Daniels and Michael Schur that isn't a spin-off to The Office . Jones will play Ann Logan, a nurse whose boyfriend has suffered a strange injury that leads her to the characters played by Poehler and Aziz Ansari. Do they work in a specialized medical clinic? A psychiatrist's office? Witch doctor's emporium? That remains to be seen but I am happy that Jones and Poehler will appear together in this project. I've missed Jones, especially since her last Office visit. The series is expected to be ready by late spring but may not

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I hope everyone watched the season premiere of Bravo's Top Chef , which nearly made up for yet another week without a new Pushing Daisies ... though from what I gather, there's going to be quite a lot of those come soon. Sigh. NBC has canceled freshman drama My Own Worst Enemy , which starred Christian Slater in the dual role of Edward/Henry. Series will wrap production after shooting its current episode, the ninth of the initial 13-episode order. No word yet on what NBC will substitute in the Monday 10 pm timeslot. ( Variety ) As for the fate of sophomore drama Lipstick Jungle , NBC has also given the drama the sack as well. Ouch. ( Hollywood Reporter ) Should Pushing Daisies be canceled tomorrow, creator Bryan Fuller says that the series' storylines will be wrapped up in comic book form. "The idea would be to finish out the season's story arcs in comic books," said Fuller, "to satisfy the fans and o

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. I hope you all tuned in to the launch of HBO's new comedy series Summer Heights High ; I've already seen the series several times but tuned in once again (it's just that funny) and also caught upon Skins (how cute was Chris' drawing of him and Jal?) and The Amazing Race . Kate Walsh's Addison Montgomery will return to Seattle Grace... at least as part of a multiple-episode crossover story between Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice that's scheduled to air during February sweeps. ( TV Guide ) FOX has delayed the start of animated comedy The Cleveland Show , a spinoff of Family Guy , until next fall. But the network has also ordered an additional nine episodes for Cleveland , bring its episodic total to a full 22 for the 2009-10 season. If that weren't enough Cleveland -centric news, Arianna Huffington has been added to the cast. ( Variety ) Less than four months after premiering, NBC's Knight Rider

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. I definitely felt the lack of Pushing Daisies last night (my Wednesday night cure for any rough week) but I was completely sucked in by the season premiere of Top Chef (airing next week), which had more tension, drama, and pitch-perfect casting in its one-hour running time than the entire last season of Project Runway did. ABC has yanked midseason comedy Single With Parents off of its schedule. The comedy, from ABC Studios and Kristin Newman, starred Alyssa Milano, Eric Winter, Annie Potts, Beau Bridges, and Amanda Detmer. Decision behind the cancellation (months before it was to launch on ABC) is said to stem from creative differences between the studio and the series' creator Kristin Newman. ( Variety ) In other ABC midseason news, the Alphabet has opted to reduce its initial order on two midseason drama series, Castle and The Unusuals . ABC has approached ABC Studios about reducing Castle from 13 episodes to ten and has

Happy Halloween and welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. I'm still catching up on television from this week, thanks to a busy social calendar and some LA-based preemptions of CW's Wednesday night series, so look for me to spend much time this weekend catching up. I got many a worried email from readers last night about Kristin Dos Santos' report about the possibility that ABC had not extended Pushing Daisies beyond its initial 13-episode order. While ABC has yet to make a decision about the fate of the series, producers were told to change their original plan for the second season's thirteenth episode (intended as the first of a two-parter) and make said episode a stand-alone installment to "cover all bases," whether the episode be just the thirteenth episode... or Pushing Daisies ' series finale. (And be sure to read this item about what you can do to help the Daisies cause.) ( E! Online's Watch with Kristin ) Don Draper has found so

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Hope you weren't too attached to CBS' The Ex List . The Eye has pulled the low-performing drama off of its schedule, effective immediately, and will fill the Friday night timeslot with repeats of NCIS for now. Decision comes on the heels of yet another batch of low ratings for the drama (5.3 million viewers and 1.5/5) and the departure of showrunner Diane Ruggiero. No word on whether production will continue (series is currently shooting its eleventh episode) or whether CBS will air the produced episodes later down the line. My thought is that they won't be going to prom any time soon. ( Variety ) Barack Obama's presidential campaign has decided not to enlist a full broadcast regime on Wednesday night, opting not to purchase the 8 pm air time on ABC, which will instead air an original episode of Pushing Daisies instead. I'm hoping that the fact that Daisies is one of the few series that will air original episod

Welcome to your Friday morning television briefing. Just a few quick headlines this morning as I've been called to perform my civic duty today and have to drive downtown for jury duty. Macaulay Culkin will appear in a multiple-episode arc on NBC's midseason drama Kings , where he will play the nephew of King Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane) who has been exiled from the kingdom of Shiloh for mysterious reasons. Also slated to appear in the series: Miguel Ferrer ( Crossing Jordan ), Leslie Bibb ( Popular ), Michael Stahl-David ( The Black Donnellys ), and the previously reported Brian Cox . ( Entertainment Weekly 's Ausiello Files ) (Aside: I saw the pilot for Kings about two months back and while it was gorgeously directed, I thought that the pacing (it's currently scheduled to air as a two-hour) was glacially slow and could use significant tightening; I think it would be a hell of a lot more compelling at 60 or even 90 minutes.) Could Bravo be readying a Project Runway cl